Monday, April 8, 2013

More than 16 killed after weekend attacks in Afghanistan

A suicide attack has claimed six lives and air attacks have killed 10 children over a weekend that served as a reminder of Afghanistan's conflict.

On Saturday, an attacker detonated a vehicle full of explosives in the centre of Qalat just as a US military convoy passed the provincial governor and his entourage. The blast killed and seriously injured several people from both groups, including a young Kabul-based diplomat, Anne Smedinghoff.
Provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Nasery was in the convoy, but was unharmed, local and Nato officialssaid over the weekend.
Separately, 10 children, an Afghan woman and a US civilian adviser to the Afghan intelligence agency were killed by air strikes during an hours-long battle in a remote part of eastern Kunar province on the same day, senior local officials said. "In the morning after sunrise, planes appeared in the sky and air strikes started and continued until evening," said tribal elder Gul Pasha, who is also the chief of the local council in Shultan, where the bombing happened.
A senior Taliban commander was in the house, but so were women and children between one and 12 years old who were members of his family, Pasha told the Associated Press by telephone.
"I don't think that they knew that all these children and women were in the house because they were under attack from the house and they were shooting at the house," he said.
Civilian casualties caused by foreign forces have been one of the most emotive and high-profile issues of the war in Afghanistan, prompting street protests and condemnation from officials including President Hamid Karzai.
They remain a frequent flashpoint for national anger, and earlier this year Karzai banned Afghan forces from calling in air strikes, although his order appears to have been ignored on the ground.US press officer killed
The deaths came as the most senior US general, Martin Dempsey, chairperson of the joint chiefs of staff, arrived in the country to discuss long-term training plans for Afghan soldiers, who from this summer are expected be leading the fight against the Taliban.
Smedinghoff, the state department officer killed in Qalat, Zabul province, was a 25-year-old press officer from Chicago who had less than four months left to serve in Afghanistan. At the time of the attack she had been heading for a local high school to help deliver books. The US secretary of state, John Kerry, paid a personal tribute to Smedinghoff, who he met on a visit to Kabul less than a month earlier. She had been put in charge of organising the trip, a prestigious role for someone on only their second overseas assignment, and he remembered her as "vivacious, smart, capable", with great potential.
Her death was a reminder of the gulf between the values that the US supported and those of the Taliban and other groups fighting the government in Afghanistan, Kerry told diplomats in Istanbul, where he was visiting the consulate.
"I think there are no words for anybody to describe the extraordinary harsh contradiction of a young 25-year-old woman with all of the future ahead of her, believing in the possibilities of diplomacy, of changing people's lives, of making a difference, having an impact, who was taking knowledge in books to deliver them to a school, and someone, somehow persuaded that taking her life was a wiser course and somehow constructive, drives into their vehicle, and we lose five lives."
There were also tributes from journalists and others with whom Smedinghoff had worked. "Saddened by loss of Anne Smedinghoff whose commitment always impressed me. RIP Anne & your sacrifice to get books to Afghans appreciated," the prominent Afghan women's rights activist Wazhma Frogh said on Twitter.
"Anne was helpful and kind, going out of her way to assist. Tragic," the Wall Street Journal correspondentMaria Abi-Habib said on Twitter.Taliban claims responsibility
Last year, a civilian working on a diplomatic passport for the US government's development arm, USAid, died in a suicide bombing in eastern Afghanistan. But the last US state department diplomat killed in Afghanistan was ambassador Adolph Dubs, who was shot during a botched kidnapping in 1979.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had wanted to target either the government or a Nato convoy. "We were waiting for one of them," a spokesperson, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, told AP. "It was our good luck that both appeared at the same time."
The 18-hour battle with the Taliban in Kunar province broke out when a clearing operation led by local intelligence agency officers met with fierce resistance, said Wasifullah Wasifi, a spokesperson for the provincial governor. An investigation was under way into how the children and woman had died, Wasifi said. The Nato-led coalition said it was aware of allegations of civilian casualties in Kunar and was looking into them.The killings followed a bloody Taliban assault in the country's west on Wednesday that killed 44 people in a courtroom in Farah province. The United Nations says civilians are being increasingly targeted.
In a statement posted online earlier on Saturday, Ahmadi said the Taliban would continue to target Afghan judges and prosecutors.
"The Islamic Emirate, from today onwards, will keep a close watch over courthouses, all its personnel and all those who try to harm Mujahideen and will deal with them the same as the judges and prosecutors of Farah. – Guardian News and Media 2013

Mail and Guardian

COMMENTS BY SONNY

The ILLUMINATI is waging war - EAST VS WEST.

Russia has to dump its old war stocks so they sponsor their past enemies against the West.

Prominent businessman Nhlanhla Gasa was brutally murdered and his body dumped in the Tugela River in KwaZulu-Natal less than a week ago. It also turns out Gasa, called a “Zuma associate” by newspapers, had a long business relationship with arms deal consultant Fana Hlongwane. Daily Maverick investigates. By MANDY DE WAAL.

Judge Willie Serari - Daily Maverick

Terry Crawford-Brown - M & G

Nhlanhla Gasa - the wealthy businessman who was stabbed multiple times and whose body was disposed of in the Tugela River in Kwazulu-Natal - was a former business associate of arms deal beneficiary and consultant Fana Hlongwane. The pair had shares in, and were directors of, an arms deal offset company called Hivex that was funded by British multinational aerospace company, BAE Systems (also implicated in the arms deal).

Gasa’s corpse was discovered in the Tugela by residents of Newark, situated some 75 kilometres away from Umhlanga, where the Durban businessman lived. Locals called the police after spotting the body in the water. Police later found Gasa’s Jaguar “burnt beyond recognition” metres away from where his body was located.

A SAPS spokesperson said blood was found at Gasa’s Umhlanga house, and added that this indicated the businessman had been murdered at his home and then taken up the north coast to the Tugela River where his body was dumped. The police said no valuables had been taken from Gasa’s home.

Police spokesman Colonel Vincent Mdunge told the Independent on Sunday that Gasa was at home alone at the time of the attack and that there was no sign of forced entry. “A trail of blood was found in the house which led to the garage, suggesting that he was dragged after he was murdered,” Mdunge told the weekly newspaper.

Sixty-three-year old Gasa and Hlongwane were connected through the mutual business interest of Hivex, which was established through offsets from South Africa’s strategic defence procurement, signed in 1999, and which has become known since then as the notorious ‘arms deal’.

Hlongwane was close to Joe Modise, a democratic SA’s first minister of defence and one of the founders of the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe. In the nineties Modise appointed Hlongwane to the board of Denel, the state-owned defence and aerospace company, and made the man his advisor.

In a paper for independent research entity the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, arms deal researchers and authors Paul Holden and Barnaby Pace, together with ex-ANC MP-turned-activist Andrew Feinstein, write about how the arms deal undermined South Africa’s nascent democracy. The paper – called Corruption and the Arms Trade: Sins of Commission - reveals that Hlongwane had significant influence with Modise, and acted as his gatekeeper. Despite being on a government salary, this didn’t stop Hlogwane from receiving significant payments and bonuses from BAE, which the UK Serious Fraud Office suspected flowed to politicians and government members linked to the arms deal, write Holden, Pace and Feinstein.

Mail & Guardian reported in 2010 that Hlongwane was paid “commissions” of R200 million for his part in securing the sale of military aircraft to the South African government. The payment was, in part, made to one of Hlongwane’s companies, called the Ngwane Defence Group. Former MK field commander and Defence Force chief Siphiwe Nyanda was installed as the CEO Of Ngwane Defence, which was launched with a big to-do at Ysterplaat Airforce Base in Cape Town by then-Transport Minister Jeff Radebe. Soon afterwards, Ngwane Defence was presenting to the parliamentary defence committee and romancing the department of defence.

Nyanda got a luxury house out of the deal and made millions through other government contracts before heading back into public life (from 2009 to 2010) as a disastrous minister of communications, which earned him the moniker ‘minister of luxury’. Currently Nyanda is Zuma’s personal representative in Parliament.

But let’s get back to Hlongwane & Gasa, and their arms deal offset project called Hivex. A requirement of the arms deal was that ‘offsets’ were made to encourage economic development and investment in select sectors. These offset projects were documented and monitored by the Department of Trade and Industry, while the efforts were approved by the acquisition entity of the Defence Force, Armscor.

The main product that Hivex brought was an HIV therapy that was to be trialled in SA, with a view to being commercialised. Hivex was financed to the tune of some R24 million by BAE Systems following the London based defence company’s successful arms deal bid, which involved the supply of Gripen fighters and Hawk Lead-in Fighter Trainers. Both Hlongwane and Gasa were shareholders and directors of Hivex (Daily Maverick has the CIPRO share register), while Gasa was a shareholder of a section 21 company called EMF Research International (in this instance EMF was short for electromagnetic field).

A look at the Hivex website shows that the therapy claims to be an HIV treatment that is safe, strengthens the immune system, is low cost, and has no known side effects. But the therapy was also labelled a scam and came under fierce attack from AIDS activists, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), for offering no scientific evidence to back up its assertions.

In 2010 TAC successfully got an order for Hivex to take down its website (and social media pages) because they were misleading to the public. At the time the Aids activists said Hivex was promoting its therapy as a “pioneering radical treatment for people with HIV” and that the company claimed people on the treatment “were 5.7 times less likely to need hospital treatment, antiretroviral drugs, or die”.

Despite the order, Hivex’s website is still online. In 2011 Nathan Geffen, author of Debunking Delusions and editor of Quackdown, warned that Hivex was a pseudoscience, and cautioned patients to be sceptical of claims made by the company. Another article on the medical scam-busting site entitled Electromagnetic Quackery states Hivex claims to use electromagnetism to treat HIV.

“Their website states, “Hivex Treatment targets proteins in the HIV virus. It is intended to disable the virus so that the virus stops causing the death of other cells ('apoptosis'), allowing white blood cells (lymphocytes) to increase.” No credible regulatory body has confirmed that Hivex is an effective treatment for HIV. In fact, no studies on the efficacy of Hivex for the treatment of HIV in human beings have ever been published. In addition, the proposed mechanism of Hivex treatment is scientifically implausible,” the article reads.

“Patients are charged R1,000 for the electromagnetic Hivex treatment. After that they are encouraged to use a ‘detox’ mixture that costs R200 per month,” Quackdown states, and adds: “For Hivex Limited to offer Hivex treatment as a treatment for HIV before any peer-reviewed trial results proving efficacy have been published and before the World Health Organisation or any regulatory authority has approved the device for this purpose, is unethical and irresponsible.”

In 1998 Gasa registered a company with Cipro called ‘Dr Nana Dlomo’. At the time of his death Gasa was still an active member and director of this company. It is not known what this entity was used for, but its business address is registered in Durban North.

Meanwhile Hlongwane is keeping a low profile and trying hard to evade the Seriti commission of enquiry into the arms deal. The billionaire bachelor was supposed to appear at the public hearings, but late last year Judge Willie Seriti, who is chairing the effort, told media he was having a hard time finding Hlongwane.

Perhaps Seriti should have looked in the two-storey, five-bedroomed home Hlongwane escapes to in Zimbali, or the arms deal man’s Hyde Park mansion in Johannesburg. The latter home is said to have been built on a 4,000m² property purchased in 2000 by Tsebe Properties, founded by a former chairperson of BAE Systems. This home sports a cinema and “a bedroom the size of a medium house”. Another good place to find Hlongwane could be an exotic car showroom, seeing as the man has a taste for über luxury cars. Independent reported Hlongwane’s fleet is said to include a Lamborghini Murcielago, a Bentley Azure, two Ferraris and a Porsche Cayenne.

In reporting on Gasa’s death this past week, the media made mention of his former positions with Transnet, Umgeni Water and Absa; but there was scant news of his previous activity with the Vulindlela group of companies. Daily Maverick has documentation from Cipro which shows Gasa was a shareholder and director of Vulindlela Holdings, Vulindlela Investments, Vulindlela Health, and remained a shareholder of Vulindlela Properties at his time of death.

Vulindlela featured prominently in the fraud and corruption trial of Schabir Shaik, and was reportedly the ANC’s choice for a BEE component for the Durban Point Waterfront Development. A R1.8-billion project, Durban Point, is the result of a partnership with the eThekwini Municipality and a troubled Malaysian conglomerate called Renong (a company with strong ties to that country’s finance minister and once Malaysia’s most influential listed company).

Shaik tried to muscle in on the deal between Vulindlela and Renong by getting the Malaysians to displace the ANC favourites with his own company, Nkobi Holdings. Shaik’s bid failed and the billion rand development went ahead between Vulindlela and Renong.

The Vulindlela network of companies benefited from a 1997 government decision to enable Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), like the 2001 Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital project said at the time to be worth R4,5 billion and set to run for 15 years. This PPP was meant to enable the Durban-based medical facility to deliver “world-class service” through the installation of “state-of-the-art medical, information and management technology equipment”.

A non-executive director for Digicore, Gasa was also the head of a BEE company called Western Breeze; was active in a company called Gasa and Associates; and involved in iSeluleko Consulting, which benefitted from a sustainability contract associated with the 2010 World Cup. At the time of his death Gasa was also still active in a company called Notha Construction.

On Sunday, City Press reported that a family spokesperson, Louis Seeco, announced the police had already made an arrest in connection with the murder. “According to what police now say, there is one person who has been arrested,” Seeco told City Press. “There is a likelihood that there are another two suspects, who they are looking for. That is what we know at this stage,” Seeco said.

The police did not confirm the arrest, while Seeco added that the motive behind the murder was a mystery to Gasa’s family. Gasa is father to four children including Mbali Gasa (crowned Miss South Africa in 1997 and married to Khaya Ngqula, the embattled former head of SAA); and Noni Gasa (a fashion writer and television host on SABC 3 and M-Net).

A memorial service will be held for Gasa on Wednesday 3 April at an Anglican church in Durban, while his funeral will take place on Friday 5 April in Ulundi. DM

Seriti faces court over arms deal queries, says advocate

Judge Willie Seriti could be taken to court soon if he fails to give explanations for the commission's failure to summons the ANC and its records.

Advocate Paul Hoffman of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa is still waiting for responses to 13 questions he sent to Seriti, including why he chose not to summons the ANC.

If Seriti fails to respond to Hoffman's questions, and if his client, former banker Terry Crawford-Browne, cannot persuade the commission to subpoena the documents and records he needs to give evidence, Hoffman said they would have no choice but to litigate.

"In this commission, it is notoriously well known that the ANC has been implicated in the alleged bribe-taking and one of its former MPs, Andrew Feinstein, has widely publicised the allegation that the ANC's 1999 election campaign was paid for out of the proceeds of the bribes from the arms procurement deal," said Hoffman. "In these circumstances, it is irrational to decline his request as the commission has done to obtain access to the documents before the hearings commence on August 5. All of the complainant witnesses will be pre-judiced if they are not given access to the financial records of the ANC and to its documents pertaining to its internal post-Polokwane investigation into the arms deal."

Although the litigation is planned as a single court action, Hoffman said Seriti would be faced with a request for a court order compelling him to answer the questions, and the commission will also be drawn into legal processes to compel it to send out subpoenas to the ANC and to access its records and documents.

Dragged into the scandal

Hoffman represented Crawford-Browne in his court battle that forced the hand of President Jacob Zuma – whose name has also been dragged into the scandal – to set up a commission of inquiry into corruption allegations regarding the 1999 multibillion-rand arms deal.

The commission put out a press release this week that hit out at Crawford-Browne's "persistent attempt" to prescribe to the commission, and said it was in possession of massive documentation implicating many people.

"The public must understand that, before the information is properly interrogated in the upcoming public hearings, the commission cannot be party to any exercise to canvass it in the public domain and bandy around the names of those implicated," it stated.

Asked whether Seriti was planning to answer Hoffman's 13 questions by March 22, commission spokesperson William Baloyi said: "Unfortunately, I can't respond as the chairperson is already out of office and he will [only] be available on Monday."

Earlier this week, Kate Painting, one of the two legal researchers who accompanied Seriti on recent overseas fact-finding trips, resigned. Although Painting could not be reached for comment, the Mail & Guardian was informed by sources close to her that she will return to a job as a researcher for the judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal, where she first met Seriti.

Arms commission blind to the facts

Researchers argue that there is ample evidence to suggest that the ANC benefited from the arms deal and that the party must testify at the commission

When President Jacob Zuma was reluctantly forced by legal action to appoint the commission of inquiry into South Africa's notorious arms deal, it was one of those moments that politicians believe they can control, but which often develop a life of their own beyond the machinations of the powerful.

Despite its difficult birth, the commission could play a pivotal role in the development of our country's young democracy if it lays bare the gargantuan amount of evidence about the deal and recommends appropriate legal action against those who are shown to have behaved inappropriately.

If it proposes steps to recoup monies forsaken on contracts shown to have been won corruptly, as is apparently allowed for in the contracts, then it will be remembered as the protector of our Constitution, the champion of transparency and accountability in government and the ultimate protector of ordinary citizens and taxpayers.

If, however, it fails to perform this crucial task without fear or favour, it will become the latest in a long line of whitewashes that will ultimately cost South Africa about R70-billion on weaponry that was never really needed and is woefully underutilised.

Haphazard

The commission did not get off to the best of starts. It took months to set up the most basic infrastructure, was haphazard in its approach to local and international meetings and its initial communication with potential witnesses was confused. None of this is surprising, given the enormity of its task and its relatively limited resources.

Then, in January, a senior official of the commission resigned, alleging there was a hidden agenda to discredit those who have been whistle-blowers on the deal, or those who have investigated its seedier underbelly, who are among the first to have been called to give evidence.

Most recently, in a letter to witness When President Jacob Zuma was reluctantly forced by legal action to appoint the commission of inquiry into South Africa's notorious arms deal, it was one of those moments that politicians believe they can control, but which often develop a life of their own beyond the machinations of the powerful.

South Africa’s controversial military mission in the Central African Republic has been sized down: of the several hundred South African troops that were stationed there previously, fewer than 20 remain. By KHADIJA PATEL and DE WET POTGIETER.

There were more than 200 soldiers present at the height of the battle for Bangui last month, compared to just 18 at the moment.

General Jean Felix Akanga, head of the regional peacekeeping force Fomac, confirmed to The Wall Street Journal’s Alexis Flynn that just a handful of South African soldiers were still in Bangui. Akanga, a Gabonese national who leads 500 Fomac troops from Chad, Cameroon, Gabon and Congo, said: "There is only a little

New soldier death toll report an insult to SA Govt'

SANDF soldiers carry the bodies of their colleagues killed in the Central African Republic on 24 March 2013. Picture: Alex Eliseev/EWN

Mbali Sibanyoni | 40 minutes agoJOHANNESBURG - The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said on Thursday reports by a French news agency about the number of South African soldiers killed in the Central African Republic (CAR) is an insult to government.

France's official news agency RFI reported that rebels in the CAR said the number of South African soldiers who died in battle last month ranges between 36 and 50.

The official death toll from government was 13.

The SANDF’s Xolani Mabanga has dismissed these claims.

“Anybody who has a figure more than 13 is more than welcome to bring the bodies of our personnel to the SANDF.”

Meanwhile, the South African National Defence Union (SANDU) has welcomed the decision to withdraw all South Africa’s troops from the CAR.

President Jacob Zuma attended an emergency summit in Chad on Wednesday where a decision was taken not to recognise the rebel government in the CAR.

This means South Africa’s agreements with that country effectively fall away.

Whatever troops remain in the CAR will now be withdrawn, although most of the soldiers have been brought home already.

SANDU National Secretary Pikkie Greef said they were satisfied with the decision.

“SANDU is delighted to hear about the withdrawal of the troops. This is what we’ve been calling for over the past week. We must however caution that it does not mean our troops will not be deployed there again in the future.”

(Edited by Tamsin Wort) Comments by SonnyAccording to France between 36 and 50 SA soldiers were killed in CAR and not 13 as originally reported?WHO IS WITHHOLDING THE TRUTH FROM THE SA PUBLIC AND THE WORLD?

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Zuma arrives in Chad

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2013

BIG TALK: President Zuma will deliver his State of the Nation address on Thursday. Photo: KEVIN SUTHERLAND/Sunday Times

03-APR-2013 | SOWETANLIVE

President Zuma was invited to the Summit by the Chairperson of ECCAS, His Excellency Mr Idriss Deby Itno, President of the Republic of Chad.

President Zuma arrives in N'Djamena, Republic of Chad, for the ECCAS Extraordinary Summit

His Excellency Mr Jacob Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa, has arrived in N'Djamena, the Republic of Chad, where he is leading a South African delegation to the Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), scheduled for 03 April 2013.

President Zuma was invited to the Summit by the Chairperson of ECCAS, His Excellency Mr Idriss Deby Itno, President of the Republic of Chad.

President Zuma's delegation includes the Ministers of International Relations and Cooperation (Ms Maite Nkoana-Mashabane), Defence and Military Veterans (Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula) and State Security (Dr Siyabonga Cwele).

It is expected that the ECCAS Extraordinary Summit will consider ways of restoring constitutional order in the Central African Republic in accordance with the decisions taken by the African Union Peace and Security Council (PSC).

In line with the AU and the United Nations, South Africa calls on the international community to remain actively engaged in the promotion of peace, security, democracy and good governance in the CAR and the regio

President Zuma was invited to the Summit by the Chairperson of ECCAS, His Excellency Mr Idriss Deby Itno, President of the Republic of Chad.